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DEFYING THE SOVIETS. ROMANIA`S POSITION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SIX DAY WAR

G. S. Manea

Abstract

Although the most loyal of the socialist satellite states in the 50, a decade later Romania dared to challenge soviet commandments in some crucial moments of the international arena. Among the episodes that characterized the independent impulses of the Romanian foreign policy in the second half of the `60, we can include the Six-Day War, in June 1967. Relying on archive documents, official statements, and media sources of that particular year, we can assert that the Romanian government, its leaders practiced a quite risky diplomacy by not adhering to the soviet line. It was an excellent opportunity for Nicolae Ceau?escu, Ion Ghorghe Maurer or Corneliu M?nescu to stand before the international community with a rhetoric of peace calling for the peaceful settlement of the conflict, through bilateral political negotiations. But this attitude contravened the Soviet position and forced Romania to resist the socialist states pressures to declare Israel as an aggressor state and to help the Arab states. When the conflict moved to the UN General Assembly, Romania did not hesitate to vote against the Soviet resolution and to state, in a meeting between President Johnson and Prime Minister Maurer, that responsibility rests only with the Soviets while the American attitude was reasonable.

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